


Push Me Down and Hold Me

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Kinktober2018 [4]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crying, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Kinktober, Panic Attacks, Sensory Deprivation, Spanking, kink as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 13:41:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: Clint’s school day ended with a nervous breakdown in math class.  He needs to drown his thoughts out with something else.  Natasha takes care of him.





	Push Me Down and Hold Me

**Author's Note:**

> Freud would have something to say about all of my prompts taking place in college au’s, but Freud’s not here. 
> 
> Spanking, decryphilia, and sensory deprivation. I’m not projecting onto Clint in this. Not at all. Zero percent.

Clint’s school day ended with a nervous breakdown in math class.  He’d been planning to go to the library after class, spend a few painstaking hours picking through his biology notes and making sense of the formulas they’d sped through in class, but math devastated the last of his motivation. 

 

After you burst into tears, sneak out of class, and spend thirty-two minutes hyperventilating in the handicapped stall of a public restroom, you kind of have to call it a day.  Clint snuck back into class with his tail between his legs, and he held it together long enough to gather his materials and sneak back out. As soon as his feet hit the pavement, his chest filled with fire, and Clint had to crouch against the wall until he could breathe mostly normal again. 

 

With just the hint of a stutter in his chest, Clint pulled up his hood and set to the streets.  It was a seventeen minute walk to his apartment if he booked it; he made it in twelve. 

 

The apartment was empty when he got there, and perhaps that was for the best, but at the moment Clint could not handle it.  

 

That was why, when Natasha got home half an hour later, Clint was throwing a fit in the living room. 

 

He’d gotten as far as opening his textbook to transcribe the notes he’d lost in class that day, but the symbols danced before his eyes and he couldn’t focus long enough to get through a single sentence.  He chucked his book at the wall at the exact moment Natasha walked through the door. 

 

It crashed off the wall, about a foot from her head, and she stared into the room with barely raised eyebrows. 

 

“Hey there, temper tantrum,” she greeted him.  “Bad day?” 

 

For Clint to get what he wanted, he had to do one of two things.  He had to approach Natasha like a grown up and say, “Hey, Nat, darling, love of my life, would you be willing to scene tonight?”  Or he had to act up, be enough of a brat for Natasha to get the message and take him down a peg. 

 

Clint didn’t do either of those things.  Instead, staring back at Natasha- beautiful, wonderful Natasha who held it together through bad days and  _ never _ got this fucked up, was never so self-centered that she got trapped in her head and lost it, never had panic attacks in public on the regular all because she couldn’t do  _ math _ .

 

Clint looked at her, at her unjudging yet curious stare, and immediately lost it. 

 

“Whoa,” she said, while Clint collapsed to his knees sobbing in the middle of their living room.  He scuffed his knees as he hit the carpet, but the sting just shot through him like a zap of electricity, screaming stimuli stacking on a mountain of screaming stimuli.  He needed to take his hearing aids out. He needed to… to sink to the bottom of a swimming pool and just. 

 

Just drown. 

 

He needed-

 

“What do you need?” Natasha was suddenly kneeling in front of him, hands cradling Clint’s head.  She pulled him forward, and he dropped his forehead against her chest and sobbed. Like a crazy person.  That’s who he was turning into, these days. 

 

“I need-  I need… fuck, Nat, I’m sorry-” 

 

“Breathe,” she cut him off.  “Get your head back. Then tell me what’s wrong.”

 

They stayed like that, unmoving except for Clint’s shaking and Natasha’s nails scritching at his scalp.  Eventually oxygen flowed back into him, his head started to clear, and he was able to open his eyes even though he couldn’t find the balls to pick his head up and look at her. 

 

“I need to drop.  I… I lost it at school.  I can’t, I need,  _ Nat, please _ ,” he was able to choke out, tears welling in his eyes again.  

 

“I got you,” she said, rubbing his upper arms like she was trying to warm him up.  “Anything else? Talk to me.” 

 

Clint took a deep breath and tried to think. Tried to put his needs into words. 

 

He settled on, “Everything is so loud,” and prayed it made sense.  

 

Nat nodded, squeezed his shoulder, and stood.  She held a hand down to him, and Clint took it and hauled himself to his feet.  

 

“Close your eyes,” she said, holding onto his hand, “and come with me.” 

 

He did as he was told, forcing his flickering eyelids to stay shut as he followed her through a familiar path in their apartment.  They came to a stop, and she let go of him for a moment. Clint heard the door latch. He flinched. 

 

“I’m going to blindfold you,” Nat spoke behind him before touching him, running her hands up his arms, his shoulders, his neck. She cradled his jaw, then tapped an index finger to his temple. He nodded. 

 

“Green.” 

 

“Then I’m going to take out your hearing aids.  And I’m going to work you over, good and long, until every last bit of tension is out of those shoulders.” 

 

Clint took a deep, shaky breath and let it settle in his chest. He nodded, eyes still closed. “Green.” 

 

“Look at me,” she said as she pressed something into the palm of his hand. He looked down and saw a concave disc. 

 

“You need to stop? You click this as many times as you can.  Try it out. Can you feel what it sounds like?”

 

Clint pressed the thing into his palm, heard and audible click, felt a pop. Yeah, that would work. He nodded. 

 

“Okay.” 

 

She nodded. 

 

“Come to the bed, then.  Sit down and shut your eyes.”

 

He did as he was told and soon his shirt was missing, along with his shoes and socks.  It felt good. He’d been burning up. Something soft as silk wrapped around his head, and he felt Natasha’s careful fingers testing the edges and securing it into place, and then he was blind. 

 

“Over my lap,” she said, taking his arm and guiding.  He moved carefully until he was face down against the bed spread, one arm over the edge of the bed, fingers touching the floor.  He squirmed, got comfortable, felt like his skin was on fire. 

 

“You need to stop, you click and tell me,” she instructed.  “I’m taking them out now.” 

 

It was a weird feeling having someone else take out your hearing aids.  Not necessarily a good one either. Clumsy, too much pressure, and then everything was muffled and nearly silent.  He supposed that’s why he let her do it, then. He wasn’t in control. She could fumble and drop them on the floor, but with Nat in charge, that didn’t have to be his problem for a while. 

 

She pet him next, soft soft hands running over his back and shoulders, his calves, his thighs, slipping under the loose material of his basketball short pant legs before smoothing it back down.  She patted his ass once, twice- a warning. 

 

Clint took a deep breath, and then she hit him. 

 

Natasha was good at spanking. They figured that out a few months in their relationship, when Clint kept playing games and pushing and pushing and getting under her skin for no good reason, until one day she smacked him for mouthing off, just a playful thing really, and Clint had a bit of a revelation. 

 

It was humiliating to bring up, to look at his girlfriend and say “Babe, how would you feel about spanking me?” 

 

But she had more experience than he could ever imagine, and he had nothing to worry about. 

 

She’d done scenes with fire and knives.  She’d watched an old man pee on someone in a bathtub and call it sex.  She’d let herself get rigged entirely off the floor. 

 

With strangers, too. Total strangers in a night club.  Clint couldn’t ever imagine trusting like that. 

 

He trusted Natasha.  Trusted her even when he couldn’t hear her, couldn’t see her, just felt the sting of slap after slap landing and trusting her to know his limits, to take care of him. 

 

Clint didn’t know his own limits right now.  He hated himself, almost, for his bad day. He needed to get a grip. Needed to stop being a head case. Needed to be punished. 

 

And Natasha would take care of that for him.  She would beat him raw and not ask him to make any decisions.  He could tune out, eventually, and just float. 

 

Not yet, though. His thoughts were still coming too fast, even if they were starting to get interrupted.  Clint was putting more and more energy into keeping quiet. They were only a few dozen snacks in. He couldn’t start whining yet. 

 

But it hurt, god it hurt.  Natasha must have known how badly he needed then, because she’d hardly given him a warm up at all.  With a proper warm up he could go for hours, but he wouldn’t cry. If she came in hard and fast he wouldn’t stand a chance of holding himself together. 

 

She knew what he needed. That had to be it. She couldn’t be mad about the book throwing. She herself had punched a hole in the wall after a horrible day.  She couldn’t fault him for his emotions. 

 

He could fault himself, though. He felt so dumb, acting like that. Blowing up like a child. Crying at school. Letting himself fall behind and get overwhelmed in the first place. He was a grown up. He was supposed to be responsible. 

 

But he’d failed and now he was over Natasha’s knee getting his ass set on fire. 

 

It  _ hurt. _  It burned like he was crawling with ants, and Clint couldn’t stop himself from squirming.  He felt a groan vibrate in his throat and pressed his face into the bed. 

 

At some point she’d tugged his shorts down his thighs, but he couldn’t remember when or tell the difference.  All he knew what that they slipped past his knees when he kicked out, trapping his legs and making it harder to move. 

 

He struggled harder, bucking and kicking until firm hands yanked him forward by the waist band of his underwear and pinned him down with an elbow in the middle of his back.  He kicked, tried to move, and found himself stuck. 

 

Just him, the silence, the dark, and the pain. He had to be making noise, now.  His mouth was open and his throat was sore, but his eyes were dry. He wasn’t crying.  Couldn’t get there yet. 

 

He didn’t feel helpless. He felt… he felt… he felt something that was  _ not  _ Natasha’s hand hit him with a new ferocity, and he felt it in his teeth as he yelled out, red hot pain exploding on his skin. 

 

Hairbrush. He’d know that sensation anywhere.  She hit him again, and he purposefully groaned, wondered what it sounded like. Three more hits, and Clint was trying to squirm away.  He didn’t want to safeword, he didn’t need to, but it  _ hurt _ and he wanted it to  _ stop _ but he knew it’d be so much better if he rode it out, let it take him over and put him in the right head space. 

 

But God it was so hard to talk himself into that in the moment. He twisted and pushed against her before finding his hand and throwing it back behind him.  He had a brief second of reprieve before she moved, wrestling them both into a new position. 

 

Clint was suddenly upside down, hands thrown out in front of him to balance against the floor. He was close enough to brace of his elbows.  

 

She had him trapped over one knee, now.  Helpless in a new position that he couldn’t move out of, couldn’t kick, couldn’t twist. He just had to lay there and take it, and she’d decide when he was done, and she was in control, and Clint could scream and cry and it wouldn’t make a difference, he was  _ stuck here _ . 

 

And as Natasha picked up a fiery pace with the hairbrush, Clint felt himself crumble apart again. 

 

Earlier, in his panic and desperation and rage, his main focus had been forcing it back down, being quiet, acting  _ normal _ .  Here, though, there was no normal. Just punishment and pain and he was paying for this whole awful day through his ass, and there was no way to ask him to stay quiet. 

 

The groans were back. With every single smack he felt them in the back of his throat.  She picked up the pace, faster, faster, until Clint’s whole body was screaming and he was seeing red and then finally, finally, he started to cry. 

 

He fell apart, unrelenting pain washing over him.  He buried his face in the crook of his elbow, nose to the floor, and sobbed like a child. 

 

It hurt. It hurt so bad and it was going to hurt forever and he deserved it and Natasha was watching him cry. She made him fall apart, so damn easily, with a child’s punishment, and he was sobbing over her knee like a little boy and he was ridiculous and- 

 

“Ah!” He wasn’t sure if he shouted out loud or just in his head, but something  _ cold _ and  _ slimy  _ was being rubbed into the very sensitive skin of his ass.  He hissed and groaned and bit down on the meat of his arm until the lotion heated up, and it started to feel almost good, despite the sparks of pain his injured skin was shooting through him. 

 

He laid there, still, even after she was done and just caught his breath. His nose was running. His face was a mess. The blindfold was soaked and it was a little hard to breathe upside down. 

 

He pressed against the floor and pushed himself up.  She caught his arms and steadied him, helping him stand. 

 

The blindfold slipped away, and he blinked his eyes in the dim room and found Natasha. 

 

Sweaty, hair tossled, and grinning.  She wiped under his eyes with the pad of her thumb, then produced a tissue out of nowhere and held it to her his. 

 

He took it, blew, cleared a way to breathe.  He tossed it in the trash, then twisted a bit and assessed the damage. 

 

It hurt to stand, but it hurt worse to move. He grimaced and reached back to rub his ass, just to realize that it hurt worse to touch it than to not touch it. 

 

Natasha stepped back, yawned, and stretched her arms above her head. ‘Come,’ she signed, and climbed onto the bed.  

 

He crawled up next to her, tucking himself into her side and resting his head on her chest.  She turned on the TV, and he watched her turn it on a low volume even though it didn’t matter- he couldn’t hear it anyways. He sighed contentedly and nuzzled close. Her fingers slipped back into her hair. 

 

Clint’s school day ended with a nervous break down, but his afternoon ended with an endorphin rush that sent him flying and a headache melting away from the backs of his eyes.  He let them slip shut with another happy sigh and felt himself float, cradled in the warm embrace of Natasha’s arms and knowing that she was there to take care of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Saw someone else tag a fic “not endorsing kink as a coping mechanism” and yeah, they’re right, it’s not the healthiest option, but damn if this wouldn’t help me cope like a mother fucker #avoidancestrategies


End file.
